AJV (00:07): Hello, and welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand. I am AJ Vaden and the CEO and co-founder of brand builders group. And I am also riding solo today without my counterparts husband, business partner, all the things were evaded. But today I am here on myself to give you our recap on a recent interview that we did with Mark Victor Hansen and his life at crystal Dwyer Hanson on the basis of this new book that they had come out, not that long ago, but it’s called ask the bridge from your dreams to your destiny. And I love stuff like this because we don’t do a ton of it on this podcast. I feel like we get very technical and very technical, and it’s all about how to, and it’s not that this is not a how to episode it most definitely is, but it’s a how to, in a very introspective way, which I think is unique and different. AJV (01:11): And I also just love the insights that they have on going from where you are to where you want to be and the power of questions and the power of asking. And I really, this was like one of the best interviews that I’ve listened to in a really long time on just that power of asking. Right. And I also really love this because it type takes it down to a Gary, how to tangible way on a kind of Ethereum topic. And so, okay with that, any more explaining, I’m going to get right down to what are the three big takeaways from this interview with mark Victor Hansen and his wife crystal? So the first thing was this thing that he said, because I am a mom of two toddlers and I am bombarded with questions all day long about all the things a million times. AJV (01:59): So I loved something that they said he said, is that as children, we are uncorrupted askers of questions. There is no fear and asking for what you want and doing it repeatedly with guard lists of what the answer is. And I love that phrase where uncorrupted askers, and at some point down the line, me and you and everyone else on this planet has been corrupted by fear and rejection and not getting the answer we want or not getting the outcome we want. And so we stopped asking, we stopped asking why we stopped asking how we start out. We stopped asking what, and I think that was a really aha moment for me because I recently had some other questions that have been asked of me. And I will kind of give you a little parallel of something that really clicked for me on this very particular topic is I have a life coach and he’s awesome. AJV (02:58): And his name is Pete and I have been working with him. Well, I dunno for the last several months and he asked me not too long ago, he said, how much of your life do you feel like is being lived by default? And how much of your life is a created lights that you’re, you are intentionally making. And that was a really big question, because I think naturally as an entrepreneur and as someone who runs a business, I’d be like, I am making it like it is a creative life. But if I was really honest with myself, I bet it’s like 80, 20, 80, 20 is default in what just comes my way. And at some point along the lines in last few years, I have really stopped asking myself, what do I want to be doing? What business do I want to be in? Why am I doing this? AJV (03:52): How can I do something differently? How do I have more time with my kids? How do I have more white space? And I’ve just said, there’s so much to do. I don’t have the time to do that. And I’ve become a corrected asker and I’ve stopped. And instead over the last few years, there’s been this default life that has been created unintentionally for me instead of a created life by me. So when I heard him say this, it was this combination of these two conversations that I’ve been having here lately. And I thought, wow, I can’t be the only person having these internal and external dialogues about why am I not asking for the things that I want, even if they’re of myself. So that would be my first big takeaway is just how do we become uncorrected askers? And we start asking ourselves those big questions that can be life-changing and life-giving but it’s like, we actually have to ask, what do we want and how do we get it, but also why do we want it? Why is it so important? And I think that that’s kind of the first thing, and I love what he said about this. You said that quantum physics and one simple sentence is just simply what you expect is what you’re going to get. AJV (05:07): And to me, that is a default lives or created life. And so how do we become uncorrupted askers of the things that we want? So that was my first big takeaway. I thought it was really, really good. My second one is kind of like a multi-piece component. And his, I love this. He says, you are not a human being. You are a human becoming. And I loved that. I love that reminder that just because we are where we are, does not mean that is where we’re going to be good, bad or indifferent, right. We will change, things will change businesses, economies, markets, friends, family, life, it will change, and it will all evolve. We are not human beings. We are human becomings. And because of that, we, the power and the ability to change those things for ourselves to get what we want, what we expect is what we get. AJV (06:03): So what are we expecting? Right? And then he said, there’s three simple things that you need to be asking of to get there. It is, ask yourself, then ask others and then ask God, not necessarily in that order, right. It’s probably ask God, ask yourself, ask others. But those are the three different places where we should be asking questions, right? It’s asking God for guidance. It’s asking ourselves what we want and then asking other people for help and a mix of all those things, right? Asking God for help asking ourselves for guidance. It’s like all the things that it’s ask yourself, ask God, ask others. And I love that too, because I think so often we forget that there is a higher being that cares and has intention of where our life goes. But he’s also one who wants us to come to him and ask of him. AJV (06:58): And I think that too was a great reminder for me is sometimes I’m too self-reliant and I’m too independent. And I forget to lean into the places that have already been designed for me to lean into. But I definitely don’t know best. And I definitely need the help of other people. Right. I, I, you know, I love this African proverb. If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go with others, right? It’s like, you’re not meant to do this by yourself. You’re not meant to do this life and business or personal brand by yourself. You need help. You need guidance, you need support. So ask yourself, ask God and ask others. And I, I loved that. He reminded us like right, there are billions of other people on the planet, but how many people have we actually asked? AJV (07:52): Right. And if the first a hundred thousand said, no, guess what, there are billions of other humans on this planet. And how often do we ask like 5, 10, 15 people? And we get told no, and we’re like, she’s never going to happen. There are more than 7 billion people on planet earth. And we’re asking five, 10 or 15 people. And we think it’s over. And we think they, we can’t be helped because of that. Like that was a mind blowing moment for me, just to remember, it’s like, oh yeah, I could ask like five or six people and get told no, and be like, it’s hopeless. Then to remember that there’s billions of other humans on this planet. And I haven’t even began to scratch, scratch the scratch of the scratch of the surface when I stopped at this nominal number with just the people in my local community. AJV (08:43): So it’s asked and knowing who to ask and how to ask and why you’re asking, okay, I can easily go on a tangent with all of this for a long time. All right. And then here’s my third one. And I thought this was really good. And he said, no, I want to also dig into, and I keep saying he, but it’s he? And she and mark Victor and his wife crystal. And it is both of them. It is a really great interview. And I really encourage it, encourage you to go listen to the full thing. But my last one here is just how this was really powerful. is they talked about the different roadblocks to asking, and why don’t we ask if like we know these things and we can buy into this idea, but it’s also like, we need to have some self realization of why don’t we ask these things. AJV (09:23): And they said there are seven roadblocks to ask, and I’m going to give you a very high level. But this is where you really need to go and get the book and actually read it for yourself. But here they are. So the first one is unworthiness. It’s like, well, we don’t think that we’re worthy of asking for the things that we really want and desire. The second thing is naivity, right? We don’t even know what we could be asking for. And I think that was really, really good. Three is doubt. Like, is this really possible, right? Could this really happen? Like, would anyone actually be able to help? Like with God really listening, there’s doubt. And then there’s excuses. I don’t have time for this. This isn’t what I was designed for. Right. I’ve already been told, no, can’t do it again. AJV (10:03): It’s like excuses. And I think that’s where a lot of us live. We live in this false reality of excuses that we’ve made up that are not real. We think they’re real because I live in our mind, but they are not real in the real world. And then five was fear, right? We are afraid to put it out there. We are afraid of rejection. We are afraid of being persistent. We are afraid of all the things that actually may be even what happened if these things did come true, but there is some fear associated with asking six, there’s a pattern paralysis, right? It’s a, this ongoing idea that it’s like paralysis analysis too. Right. But it’s, this whole idea is like, at some point we prepare repair, we prepare, we prepare, but then we never do. Right. And then that’s a repeat that happened so many times in our life is we get into this pattern and we don’t know how to get out of it. AJV (10:57): I, and I think about that as a, as a mom, I often pull most of my examples because I’m in the thick of it. It’s like, at some point it’s like, you get into this repetitive pattern and you’re like, oh my gosh, am I ever going to sleep again? It’s like, as those newborn, those first few months, it’s like, you kind of get in this pattern. You’re like, oh, I don’t even know what to do when there’s dozens, if not hundreds of things you can be doing, but we’re, we’re paralyzed in the moment of this pattern that we’re living in. Right. And that happens with asking for what we want in life too. And the last, but not least is disconnection. We are disconnected from ourselves. And what we really want are disconnected from our relationship with God and we’re disconnected from our relationship with others. AJV (11:40): So we don’t even know who to ask and we don’t even know if they would want to. And I think these going through these seven things and really talking about why aren’t we headed in the direction where we want to be, and how did we get in this default life versus a creative life is really powerful part of this interview of this episode. And I so highly recommend you go back, listen to the whole thing with Mark Victor and his wife crystal also go check out their book. And then also come back and listen to more episodes and more recaps on the influential personal brand with myself and Rory Vaden. And until next time I hope you guys have a great day.